Sunday, October 12, 2008

New Obama/Media Attack Strategy: 'Angry Mob' Meme

After 8 years of watching while Democrats personally savage President Bush and conservatives with epiteths like "dictator" and "fascist," while seeing the rage on people's faces contorting in anger and hate, the press has discovered that this is not a good thing. At least when Republicans do it:

With McCain passing up the opportunity to level any tough personal shots in his first two debates and the very real prospect of an Obama presidency setting in, the sort of hard-core partisan activists who turn out for campaign events are venting in unusually personal terms.

"Terrorist!" one man screamed Monday at a New Mexico rally after McCain voiced the campaign's new rhetorical staple aimed at raising doubts about the Illinois senator: "Who is the real Barack Obama?"

At both stops, there were cries of, "Nobama," picking up on a phrase that has appeared on yard signs, T-shirts and bumper stickers. And Thursday, at a campaign town hall in Wisconsin, one Republican brought the crowd to its feet when he used his turn at the microphone to offer a soliloquy so impassioned it made the network news and earned extended play on Rush Limbaugh's program.

The above, from Jonathan Martin of Politico, is noteworthy in this respect; examples of how unhinged the crowd at these events are center on one, lone individual shouting out something idiotic? "Terrorist, screamed ONE man." Or "He's a liar yelled A woman."

And Oh my God! Bumper stickers and chants of "NoBama." Quick, call the Secret Service before it's too late.

There doesn't appear to be chanting and screaming for Obama's head. There aren't calls to round up Democrats and throw them in a concentration camp. There are no racial insults being thrown. This entire issue is a mirage .

Some McCain campaign officials are becoming concerned about the hostility that attacks against Sen. Obama are whipping up among Republican supporters. During an internal conference call Thursday, campaign officials discussed how the tenor of the crowds has turned on the media and on Sen. Obama.

Someone yelled "Off with his head" at a rally Wednesday for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin in Pennsylvania. Later that day in Ohio, a man stood outside a rally holding a sign that said "Obama, Osama." At a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, someone in the crowd wore a T-shirt depicting Sen. Obama wearing a devil mask.

Again, "SOMEONE yelled" off with his head. I didn't realize that one person quoting the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland meant that the GOP was committing a crime against humanity. And one idiot holding a sign that connected our messiah with a terrorist? Yes, there are some GOP nincompoops out there. Does anyone wonder what kind of ignoramuses are on the fringes of Obama rallies?

And would someone please arrest that "someone" in the crowd who dared depict Obama in a devil mask? A capital crime, it is.

Funny that when the President of the United States is burned in effigy. Or when his advisors are depicted as evil in any number of ways. Or conservatives in general are mocked, demonized, routinely referred to as fascists or authoritarian lovers, or mindless robots - or it is even suggested that Bush, Cheney, and conservatives be rounded up and shot - none of this seems to make quite the same impression on our Guardians of Civility in Politics in the press.

This is absolutely shameless. ALL Americans are mad at the moment. But to characterize crowds that attend McCain/Palin rallies as "mobs" by taking something that one or two fools shout out totally out of context is a deliberate attempt to scare undecided and swing voters into rejecting the GOP candidate. It is a despicable tactic and they should be called out on it.

Where have these people been for the last 8 years? Any kind of hatefilled rant against conservatives or the president appears to be perfectly acceptable to the press. All one need do is listen to Nancy Pelosi's floor speech immediately prior to the first bailout vote. She was accusing the president and Republicans of deliberately starting the economic crisis to satisfy their greed. I don't recall the press getting upset about that little performance.

Nor do I recall reading what one person might have shouted out at a Kerry or Obama rally about Bush or McCain. All sorts of shouts go up at political rallies. And yet all of a sudden - just in time to counter McCain's attack on Obama for his Ayers association - we get this grossly exaggerated, unfair, wildly selective attack on McCain hiding behind crocodile tears being shed because some people are mean to The One.

Is it really a surprise that individuals prone to support McCain that have been following the election closely enough to read alternative, or new media are outraged right now?

It's certainly no surprise to me that the lop-sided coverage breeding so much frustration among so many would now attempt to turn that frustration into yet another negative against John McCain and his supporters. As always, the media is being self-serving and short-sighted as to how this might all play out.

After the crowd settled down he was back at it. "When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined!"

Obama's friend Bill Ayres had his start with Chicago's Days of Rage. The economy is in a meltdown, so much so that a Republican president is dangerously flirting with socialist principles. Now, thanks in large part to a media that won't fairly report all the news, or investigate both candidates equally, a potential president aligned with the likes of a Pelosi who talked of nationalizing the oil companies even before there was a financial crisis may end up in the White House next year.

In the end, the likes of Ayres and his bunch and the Leftists Obama has courted at each stage of his career are little more than a blemish on the backside of the real American middle class, which manages to work, pay it's taxes and always muddle through somehow in a capitalist system.

If this charade continues through to election day, Chicago's Days of Rage demonstrations will end up looking like an episode of The New Zoo Revue. Imagine a hard working, mostly white middle class marching on Washington wondering how this inept government destroyed the American dream, while an empty suit that happens to be black thinks he can simply take to a microphone and everything will be just fine. Face it, he has absolutely no experience of accomplishing anything significant beyond that.

There may indeed be blood in the streets before the current political and economic issues before the nation are resolved. But it won't have much of anything to do with Race, it'll be about the fundamental principles of this Republic a great many Americans are not prepared to give up without a serious fight.

And the rage won't just last days ... it could be a battle fought for years and not always without its victims. Can you imagine the look on the faces of the Obama-loving Ayres apologists at the New York Times when the bombs start exploding in their lobby, instead of the Pentagon?

I'm not advocating it, but I do fear some Americans probably can imagine it at this point. In fact, I have little doubt of it. And I can understand that rage, even if I wouldn't support such an action. We are living in truly interesting times.

As the election heads into its home stretch, Barack Obama is deploying the financial muscle he gained from opting out of the general election public financing system that John McCain is locked into.

In key swing states, Mr. Obama is flooding the airwaves with commercials. Last week alone, he spent $17.4 million on ads in those states versus only $10.9 million for the combined efforts of Mr. McCain and the Republican Party. In Wisconsin, local political observers report they see fewer McCain ads than ever while ads urging people to "vote early for Obama" are ubiquitous.

In Florida, a state that used to favor Mr. McCain in polls, Team Obama spent $2.2 million in ads last week, while Mr. McCain made do with an ad buy of less than $700,000. In Ohio, Mr. Obama spent $2.2 million to Mr. McCain's $1.7 million.

Ad money isn't everything in politics, but this is the first presidential election in recent memory where Democrats have a significant financial edge over Republicans. Other than the debates, ads are the biggest single source of information that many voters receive about the candidates. The Obama edge could prove crucial in several states -- which is precisely why he ditched the public financing system he once so fervently supported.

I'm an Orthodox Jew -- my wife hails from Israel, where we were just married in July. So the issue of Israel is very near and dear to me, as it is to most other Jews. With Israel in mind, this is an enormous election season for American Jewry. It pits a consistently strong defender of Israel in John McCain against a man who is at best an enigma on the issue of Israel. At worst, Barack Obama is far more dangerous. His advisors are largely anti-Israel. His friends are consistently anti-Israel. His running mate, Joe Biden, says all of the right things but has a questionable record on the Jewish State. And the candidate himself is ambivalent on his defense of Israel -- he reversed himself on a united Jerusalem over the course of 24 hours, and states that he will meet with Hitler-lite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions.

And yet most American Jews are convinced that Obama is a less threatening version of Bill Clinton. They believe that Obama loves the State of Israel, will stand up for Israel's interests, and only wants to see the Israelis come to a quick and just agreement with Palestinian Arabs that protects Israel's long-term safety and security.

There is no evidence to that effect. In fact, all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

To the end of educating American Jews on Israel -- as well as Israel's non-Jewish American supporters -- I've produced a three-part YouTube video entitled "The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama. The trailer for the video (1 minute, 40 seconds) can be found here. Part I, which introduces the subject and discusses Obama's advisors, who have ranged from the virulently pro-Palestinian Samantha Power to the Carter-style anti-Israel advocate Zbigniew Brzezinski, can be found here. Part II discusses two of Obama's friends: Reverend Wright, who associates with Louis Farrakhan and believes that America's Israeli policy is responsible for 9/11; and Rashid Khalidi, a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Part II can be found here. Part III examines Joe Biden and Obama himself, and concludes that the Democratic nominee for president cannot be trusted with the future of Israel. Part III can be found here.

For fifty years, Jews have been gratefully voting for Harry Truman. Truman, unfortunately, is gone, and his party has largely become a respository of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment. Jews cannot live in the past when it comes to 2008. They must make a choice between McCain and Obama. When it comes to Israel, the choice is clear.

No worries. Just report it as a McCain smear. And dismiss it with a disparagement of poor people and some exasperation about the notion anyone would let "Mickey Mouse" vote. ACORN roundup starts with AP's "giant mud ball."

Accusations of voter fraud have hurled a giant mud ball into an already messy presidential campaign, with Republicans alleging that Democrat Barack Obama has close ties to an activist group accused of compiling fake registration forms, including ones for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys - submitted in Nevada.

Let me get this straight. That's a Republican mud ball?

But two hours after the McCain campaign teleconference Friday afternoon, ACORN held one of its own and accused Republicans of playing dirty politics and of trying to keep America's less fortunate voters, who tend to be Democrats, from the polls on Nov. 4.

"If you can't stop the 1.3 million people from getting on the rolls, at least shoot the messenger," said ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring. "There is absolutely no doubt in our minds that the attention being paid by the right is tremendously disproportionate to the problem."

That might be a good place to note that in recent presidential and congressional elections, a few thousand votes here or there . AP doesn't go there. Back to the Republican mudball.

Obama and two other lawyers in 1995 represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois to make voter registration easier. During this year's primary, Obama hired a firm with ties to the group for a massive get-out-the-vote effort.

In response to salvos from the McCain campaign, Obama's team shot right back, calling the attacks "false claims (that) are nothing more than another dishonorable, shameful attempt to divert voters' attention from the unprecedented challenges facing their families and our nation," spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

OK, so we've established that he does have ties to the people who are acccused of widespread voter fraud. Here's NY Post on the nature of the get-out-the-vote effort, by the way.

CLEVELAND - A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

"Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, `You are?' I say, `Yup,' and then they say, `Can you just sign up again?' " he said.

The Republican party is grasping on to the ACORN story as a way to delegitimize what now looks like the probable outcome of the November election. It is also a way to stoke the paranoia of their base, lay the groundwork for legal challenges of close outcomes in various states and promote new legal restrictions on legitimate voting by lower income voters and minorities.

Wow. He makes it sound like hundreds, even thousands of bogus registrations in key states might be used by Republicans to support a claim that, in the event of an Obama win, the election was stolen. I'm a little surprised, a month ahead of a critical election, he has such a cavalier attitude toward efforts to . steal an American election. But it turns out ACORN is not at fault. They weren't trying to steal the election, They wanted to buy it, and got sold a false bill of goods....

Joe Biden stepped into a huge pothole of his own making in last week's debate when he bragged that he now takes "ideology" into account when deciding whether to confirm a judicial nominee.

Biden's riff on judges was politically damaging for three reasons. First, because the public does not think judges should impose their own ideologies. Second, because the public particularly disagrees with the judicial ideology that Biden favors. Third, because Biden flat-out lied about why and when he took the position that ideology ought to matter.

Here's exactly what Biden said in the debate (the ellipses do maintain the proper context): "When I got to the United States Senate and went on the Judiciary Committee as a young lawyer, I was of the view and had been trained in the view that the only thing that mattered was whether or not a nominee appointed, suggested by the president had a judicial temperament, had not committed a crime of moral turpitude. ...

"It didn't take me long, but it took about five years for me to realize that the ideology of that judge makes a big difference. ... And that's why I was the first chairman of the Judiciary Committee to forthrightly state that it matters what your judicial philosophy is."

Biden came to the Senate in 1973. Five years after that would have been 1978. But Manny Miranda, president of the conservative Third Branch Conference, dug up quote after quote from Biden all the way to 2002 showing that he rejected ideology as an acceptable consideration.

As late as May 23, 2002, Biden said this in explaining why he would vote to approve circuit court nominee Brooks Smith: "If I had believed that the lower court nominee would abide by the precedents of the Supreme Court and their circuit, even though I knew I disagree with them philosophically, I would vote for them."

It was not until the next year when Senate Democrats, including Biden, began almost uniformly following the lead of New York Sen. Chuck Schumer in openly applying an ideological litmus test to lower court nominees. It was a radical departure from the wise tradition of considering only the nominee's qualifications, competence and temperament. It was used to justify obstruction of nominees, via unprecedented filibusters if need be, on a scale and with a viciousness never before seen in American history.

This particular derailment of tradition is largely responsible for the deterioration of the political "tone" in Washington that so many voters complain about. And the derailment came as a result of a purely partisan, political strategy by the entire Democratic caucus. That's why the lie about the timing is important: It mis-portrays this use of political hardball as some sort of principled, personal decision or revelation that Biden made or experienced on his own.

What's particularly odd about Biden volunteering the story of his epiphany on this issue is that when ideology is taken into account, the public clearly opposes the philosophies of the liberal judges Biden prefers. Biden's favored judges tend overwhelmingly toward overabundant sympathy for the rights of accused criminals, toward support for racial preferences in hiring and school admissions, toward extreme pro-abortion decisions (example: finding a constitutional "right" even for partial birth abortions and against parental notification), and against property rights versus government regulators and urban planners. Suffice it to say that none of these positions is popular.

Dig deeper, though, and Biden's position is more unpopular still. While Americans tend to prefer results reached by conservative judges of the very sort Biden has helped block, the public is even more consistently clear that it prefers that judges not allow ideology to enter their deliberations at all.

Just last month, a Rasmussen poll reported that 60 percent of the public "says the Supreme Court should make decisions based on what is written in the Constitution, while 30 percent say rulings should be guided on the judge's sense of fairness and justice." That result, of course, runs directly counter to Biden's debate position.

The public is right on this issue. Except in utterly unusual circumstances, the ideology of a nominee should play no role in Senate deliberations. John McCain will be missing an opportunity, therefore, if he doesn't campaign against the Biden-Obama embrace of ideological intrusion into the judiciary.

2 comments:

You should just be relieved that the McCain/Palin ticket is sticking to their original plan.

"We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

-George W. Bush, September 20, 2001 address to the United States Congress.

I think that all political observers that accused Sarah Palin of not knowing about the Bush Doctrine need to reassess their beliefs. She may not have been able to communicate the principles intelligibly, but she has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she has internalized an understanding of the tactics that the approach involves. The McCain/Palin ticket are simply applying the Bush Doctrine to its political opponent. The accusations that Palin and McCain are making by insinuation have very real consequences, and they need to be held accountable for them.

OIL! POWER! What If it wasn't ARAB - MUSLIM BIGOTS who suck us to the bones at the pump

The Arab Muslim Control of the World

July 2008

A simple question, What if it was not the Arabs, not the Muslims (OPEC) that control the world's energy?

What if the oil tycoons were of a different background, say Irish Catholic or Jewish?

Could you imagine how they would be lynched [in the media and all tools of public opinion]?

But it's "only" Arabs, Muslims, and they can do whatever they want, limit or extend production of oil.

Worst is of course the immense unlimited power they enjoy in being permitted to continue "business" as usual... in the "field" of crimes against humanity... No one ever dares speaks out against the racist Arab mass-murder of the Africans in Darfur, slavery in Mauritania, or how they continuously demonize Jews, or cries out against the mainstream Muslim media that always finds the "victimhood" among 'Palestinian' thugs or 'seeing freedom fighting' in Al Qaeda in Iraq or potraying "heroes" out of the Hezbollah's criminals' lowlife acts of murder (via using Arab kids as shields) on Lebanese, all to facilitate in justifying the killing of infidels mainly Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., Don't think all of the above is not related, it's still about their unlimited "freedom" to oppress everyone else... no one ever dare says, acts against the Islamo Arab GOLIATH.

In Brief

My (Gentile) opinion of antisemitism: The Jews are the best we've got so killing them is killing us.

Leftism is the hunger for control over other people. The Left are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises. "Power at any price" is their intrinsic motto -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at.

The large number of rich Leftists shows that it is not material envy that drives them but rather HATRED of society's existing arrangements

Leftists don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

Among well-informed people, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists hate success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.

The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal would be that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions run away with them and who are much more in need of praise from others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter: The average black adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.

Some Jimmy Carter wisdom: "I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "there's going to be a downward turning."

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

I am an army man and I am pleased and proud to say that I have worn my country's uniform. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. Conservatism is in touch with reality. Leftism is not.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

"Remind me never to get this guy mad at me" -- Instapundit

I have used many sites to post my writings over the years and many have gone bad on me for various reasons. So if you click on a link here to my other writings you may get a "page not found" response if the link was put up some time before the present. All is not lost, however. All my writings have been reposted elsewhere. If you do strike a failed link, just take the filename (the last part of the link) and add it to the address of any of my current home pages and -- Voila! -- you should find the article concerned.

It seems to be a common view that you cannot talk informatively about a country unless you have been there. I completely reject that view but it is nonetheless likely that some Leftist dimbulb will at some stage aver that any comments I make about politics and events in the USA should not be heeded because I am an Australian who has lived almost all his life in Australia. I am reluctant to pander to such ignorance in the era of the "global village" but for the sake of the argument I might mention that I have visited the USA 3 times -- spending enough time in Los Angeles and NYC to get to know a fair bit about those places at least. I did however get outside those places enough to realize that they are NOT America.

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in my MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

COMMENTS: I have gradually added comments facilities to all my blogs. The comments I get are interesting. They are mostly from Leftists and most consist either of abuse or mere assertions. Reasoned arguments backed up by references to supporting evidence are almost unheard of from Leftists. Needless to say, I just delete such useless comments.